Quotes: Reincarnation. Rejection. Relationship.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Reincarnation
Wm. Faulkner said that if he were reincarnated, he would like to come back as a buzzard, the most unlovable bird in existence.
Reincarnation 93 Faulkner: You know that if I were reincarnated, I’d want to come back as a buzzard [because] nothing hates him or envies him or wants him or needs him [and] he is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat anything. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Rejection
Darcy’s response to Elizabeth after she rejects his marriage proposal.
Rejection 193 Darcy to Elizabeth after she has refused his proposal: Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness. Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

Relationship
They had no feelings for each other.
Relationship 322 It was lonely and sad to be so empty-hearted toward each other. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

When we first meet people, we sense a feeling from them.
Relationship 169 Frank O’Connor: I just notice a feeling from people [when I first meet them]. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

There was something about her that made him feel as if he were not even acquainted with her.
Relationship 342 There was something in her face that forbade [his speaking],--a whiteness and a strange look in her eyes, that made him lose all feeling of comradeship or even acquaintance. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

True relationship is not off and on, but everywhere and always.
Relationship 958 But relation and connection are not somewhere and sometimes, but everywhere and always. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Fate.

His response was frank, kind and expressed readiness to hear her story, but she detected a certain reserve and alarm in his manner.
Relationship 959 Kenyon’s response had been perfectly frank and kind; and yet the subtlety of Miriam’s emotion detected a certain reserve and alarm in his warmly expressed readiness to hear her story. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

One knows in an instant when he has intruded on two people at the acme of love or hate.
Relationship 818 One always feels the fact, in an instant, when he has intruded on those who love, or those who hate, at some acme of their passion…. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

People will always have difficulty living together.
Relationships 81 There is always a difficulty in living together…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.

Two farmers shared the island, but, for three generations the members of their families had never spoken to each other.
Relationships 404 On a larger island, farther out to sea, my entertaining companion showed me with glee the small houses of two farmers who shared the island between them, and declared that for three generations the people had not spoken to each other even in times of sickness or death or birth. Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

We try to use our misfortunes to arouse the compassion and mourning of our friends.
Relationships 480 By reflection I rid myself every day of that childish and inhuman humor that makes us want by our misfortunes to arouse compassion and mourning in our friends. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Those who suffer become aliens in society.
Relationships 929 For it is one of the chief earthly incommodities of some species of misfortune, or of a great crime, that it makes the actor in one, or the sufferer of the other, an alien in the world by interposing a wholly unsympathetic medium betwixt himself and those whom he yearns to meet. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

The victims of misfortune or crime become solitary individuals unable to have relationships with other individuals.
Relationships 947 This perception of an infinite, shivering solitude, amid which we cannot come close enough to human beings to be warmed by them, and where they turn to cold, chilly shapes of mist, is one of the most forlorn results of any accident, misfortune, crime, or peculiarity of character, that puts an individual ajar with the world. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.